Jan 25, 2010

Click to enlarge. The snow-capped mountains, minus the clouds. From this angle you cannot see the really high peaks that make up the Catalinas. Those are Queen Palms in the right foreground. The large tree on the right is a Chilean mesquite and on the left is a variety of Southern Live Oak. Fellow blogger Megan mentioned the other day in a comment or on her blog that she would like to kick the members of Congress in their man-parts. I don't know how she would deal with the members who have no man parts, including the female members. Or, she might have said she wanted to slap them and I read too much into her thoughts. Either way, I'm on board. I was rewatching Truman, on the PBS show American Experience yesterday, and it put me in mind of our current political situation. Specifically our President and his swell pals in the Congress. Truman came to Washington with a reputation as the illegitimately elected stooge of a corrupt Kansas City political boss. Few if any senators wanted him there and President Roosevelt went out of his way to snub him. Part of Truman's charm was that he was not familiar with the Senate's reputation as a gentleman's club, where everyone looks the other way and no one has a bad word to say about another senator. So, Truman set about poking his nose into places where his presence was not welcome. Particularly, into waste and fraud in defense spending. That made many in the government very uneasy. Truman staked his claim as a guy who was not afraid to do what was right for the American people, even if it meant stepping on the toes of his fellow senators. So fast forward to 2010. The president, a fellow I both endorsed and voted for, has floated the idea of a commission to recommend ways to get us out of the unsustainable spending binge we find ourselves in. President Lincoln predicted that if the United States were to die, it would be from within and not at the hand of a foreign power. That is where we are headed unless we rein in this fiscal mess we have created. What has me disturbed about the president and his idea is that he wants to do it after the fall elections. This has the benefit of keeping the incumbents from having to make any hard decisions that might interfere with their ability to get themselves reelected. In the world of politics, incumbency trumps right every time. If things don't change soon, President Obama is going to be "one and done". Jimmy Carter, part 2. He needs to take a stand that he is going to do right by the people, even if it means stepping on the toes of the Congressional elites. I'm not betting on it, but it would be a good start. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

8 comments:

The Bug said...

I agree! Loved the comment about the folks not having man-parts, including the women. Snicker.

Barbara said...

I'm a little disenchanted with what is going on (or not) in Washington these days. Change is starting to seem like the impossible dream. And Obama is definitely starting to remind me of Jimmy Carter.

mouse (aka kimy) said...

hope our local pbs station hasn't aired the truman show yet.... off to check the schedule, for some reason I think the american experience airs on monday evenings in these parts....

sounds like a great program. last night our pbs station had a dylan documentary on american masters - it was gooooood -

quite a view, view, view!!

Megan said...

Ha! The question was about face slapping. But parts slapping would work.

I will have to see if I can catch that Truman show too...

Merle Sneed said...

I believe the show about Truman actually first aired in 1997. I got it from Netflix.

Kurt said...

Jimmy Carter was president in the olden days.

Ronda Laveen said...

We're slapping parts? Oh, yeah!

Steve Reed said...

I've been defending Obama, telling everyone to give him time, but I'm starting to agree that he's just too soft. It's great to want to reach consensus and give people room to adapt and change, but sometimes you just have to say, "We're doing X, because X is the right thing to do." I think he's a good man, a smart man, and he has the right ideas -- but his approach is too passive.